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We had a chance to check out the new title by Brainy Studio, TurnOn, which is touted as “An Electric platformer without platforms”. Will the title provide some entertainment, or will it fail to hit the right switches?

Story

TurnOn places you in the role of an electrified alien who crash landed on Earth and decides to lend a hand to a city engulfed in darkness. The narrative is pretty loose, with some details such as stopping a drone with a video camera, however it is told completely in picture-filled cut-scenes that introduce each level, with no dialogue.

Though the story is told simply through pictures, it’s obvious that the story’s emphasis is on helping people, making it quite kid friendly. Some ways that you will help include illuminating streetlights to ensure a young girl makes it home safely, providing power to a cafe for a date, and even rescuing people trapped on a ferris wheel.

Gameplay

In each stage, you will need to bring the light back to the homes and businesses of Electro City. As a spark, you don’t have platforms, but rather need to jump from wire to wire as you switch on the lamps and power up the generators in each stage.

The stages themselves offer up a mixture, with some simply being based on exploration and discovering everything that needs to be turned on, while others require speed and skill for you to complete. The mixture does help the game keep from getting stale and feeling like too much of the same thing.

That said, some may find the challenge levels more annoying. The exploration levels tend to have some checkpoints around, so if you fail you won’t have to start over from the beginning. The challenge levels, on the other hand, typically make you start at the beginning if you mess up, which can be frustrating for gamers.

As you deliver electricity to everything you can, you rack up some points. You can also collect blue lightning bolts in each stage for bragging rights, however, as you advance, you will also come across red lightning bolts and green lightning bolts. Unlike the blue, these each have an effect on your character. The red damage you, and only the green can help replenish your health.

Overall

TurnOn is a fun little platformer with an uplifting nature and charming atmosphere that many platformer fans should be able to enjoy.